Thirty-Fourth Encounter ~
Apparently, I slept all the way through the whole x-ray procedure because I don’t remember any of it at all. I woke up back in the ER of Providence University Hospital, the same hospital my brother had been in only a few weeks before.
When I woke up, Dad and mom were both there looking really worried, but relieved? The first thing dad said was, “What are you doing lying around when there are sidewalks that are needing to be shoveled?”
Okay, it was funny after I realized where I was, but at first, I thought he was serious.
“Am I okay?” I asked, but neither got to answer because right then, my doctor came through the curtain.
“Hey, he’s awake,” the doctor said and then she asked, “How are you feeling?”
I guess I was still confused because all I said was, “Huh?”
“Can you tell me your name?” she asked.
“Max,” I answered.
“Max, do you know what day it is?” she asked next.
I thought about it for a second and tried to shake my head ‘no’, but couldn’t. I tried to reach up to see what was inhibiting my head movement and felt something plastic.
“That’s to keep your head still.” She said.
“HOLY SHIT!” I screamed, “IS MY NECK BROKEN?!”
The doctor took hold of both of my hands because I’d tried to reach up and pull at the plastic collar.
“Whoa, whoa, calm down. Except for year skull, you don’t have any broken bones,” She said. “I promise, you’re okay! It’s just a precaution. You had a small seizure and took a tumble outside of “I fell?” I asked, not really expecting an answer. I didn’t get one either.
I calmed down after that and allowed her to check me out all over. I didn’t even care that she was a woman and boy, I was relieved when everywhere she touched on me didn’t hurt, except for my head, which was hurting pretty bad.
Finally, she shined her pin light in my eyes, and said, “Nice peepers.”
“Thanks,” I said dismissively. “Can we take this dang thing off now?”
“No, I think that it would be better for you to keep that on for a few days and then we’ll see about getting you something a bit more comfortable.” She stuck that pin light back into her pocket before saying, “You’ll probably have some residual pain. I mean, you jarred your neck about as badly as you could without actually breaking anything.”
Without telling me she was going to do so, she ran the top of her ink pen across the bottom of my left foot. My whole body shook from being tickled and for the first time, I felt a bite of pain in my neck like a vampire had taken a chomp out of me.
“Son of a bitch!” I said, not even knowing that I’d said anything.
“Sorry about that, but I needed to be sure your reactions were good,” She said.
“Were they?” Mom asked, and I didn’t miss that she didn’t sound too good herself.
“Yeah, well don’t do that again!” I snapped at the doctor, angrily.
She laughed in a high chipmunk tone, and then the skank tickled my other foot.
“God-dammit! Stop that you cock sucker!” I swore, and this time I knew I’d cussed. Boy was I mad. That second time hurt more than the first and even caused me to see stars for a minute or two.
“I’m sorry Max,” she said, but there was something in her voice that didn’t sound right. I didn’t pick up on it right away, but she asked my mom and dad to step outside of the curtain for a minute so that she could talk with them. That was when I realized that maybe I wasn’t okay after all.
I was immensely relieved when all three came back in a couple minutes later and the doctor told me that they were going to get me a room upstairs.
“We’d like to keep an eye on you for a few days.” She said, and then flashed me a smile, but I didn’t return it because I was still upset about the whole tickling thing. “If you are as lively as you seem to be right now, I might just let you go home earlier.”